Ben Stein says that taxes has to be raised on the rich....

[Ail]

Kasz216 said:

richardhutnik said:

klystron said:

Mr Khan said:

klystron said:

RedInker said:
Taxing the rich is a must. But neither Obama or Romney have the balls to mention this. Ive said this before America has to get its debt down or the country will go pop like Greece and the ramifications will fuck up the whole global economy.

One of the problems with "taxing the rich" is that you must consent to the government to define the meaning of rich. Someday you'll be on the wrong side of that line because the definition will always change. This is why I don't like giving the government the power to draw a line and treat people differently on one side of it or the other.

That's a pretty poor line of reasoning. Surely there must be an objective measure of wealth, even for the "small businessman" argument that i've heard against using the income definition of wealth.

So if a president says he wants tax policy that raises taxes on everyone making $250,000 a year, you are ok with that? So what happens if the next president wants the line drawn at $25,000? You ok with that then? What if it becomes $250,000 and stays there and hyperinflaction has the poverty line at $300,000. Is that ok?

The small business argument is a very valid argument. Most small businesses are subchapter-S corporations where the business income is filed on top of the owner's individual tax rate. If you don't like the argument then advocate simpler tax policy.;

I simply cannot understand the argument that we should raise taxes rather than cut spending. We've had so much government spending the last four years if it was going to fix the economy it would have. We should fix spending at a percentage of GDP and leave it there.

The argument is not rather.  The argument is whether or not taxes need to be raised or not.  Even Obama agreed to budget cuts.  He even agreed to more, if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire on income $250,000 or greater.

There is an issue now with tax revenues, due to the economic slowdown.  As a percentage of GDP, tax revenues are lowest in decades. 

Except that's not REALLY the issue.

Tax Revenue as a  percentage of GDP is lower then it's ever been.

This is largely due to the fact that government is a larger percentage of GDP then it's been.  Meaning taxable income is a lower percentage of GDP.

Government Receipts now are higher then they were in 2005... so it's not really lagging behind as much as you would think.  

If you jack up government spending, tax receipts as a percentage of GDP will decrease... even if tax receipts and every other single part of the economy stays the same.

 

If you only let the Bush Tax cuts expire... we surpass 2007 level taxes... by 12% in 2013.  At 2,900 Billion.

Tax receipts at the end of Clinton's era were only 1,900 Billion. (2005 was 2153 billion fyi.)

This is misleading too. Government spending as a percent of GDP has not changed that much in the last 50 years, except a recent spike following the housing crash...

Interestingly enough, prior to the current crisis, government spending as percentage of GDP was the highest during the Reagan Presidency ( you know the guy every GOP candidates workships for reigning in government....)